Last week, Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying announced a series of measures to increase housing supply in the short and medium term.
The 10 measures put forward will not create an immediate solution to the supply shortage. His decision to scrap the rental option of the My Home Purchase Plan will have no impact since it has been in the pipeline for years. The market has been expecting this.
In the medium term, Mr Leung intends to convert 36 vacant government and community sites to residential use, to provide about 11,900 public and private flats. But this move requires a prolonged consultation process and changes to town-plan zoning. It will take years to go through all the necessary procedures.
When it comes to the "flats for Hong Kong people" proposal, Mr Leung has no timetable. Given the lack of administrative backing, I foresee that the drafting of new terms for land sales that would require developers to sell the flats only to Hongkongers will take years to complete.
The measure that I hope will have an impact is the decision to set up a steering committee to assess the housing needs of different sectors of the community and form long-term land and housing policies to meet their needs. I hope it will consider removing the resale restriction for existing Home Ownership Scheme flats without the need to pay the premium to the Housing Authority.
All existing HOS owners should have the incentive to sell their flats to increase the housing supply as soon as possible.